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FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

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Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#101

Post by syshum »

breck wrote: post #40

This is cool! Good job on the FBI. Remember it's a good thing to have phones be pinging. 1. I want to be billed correctly 2. If my service drops often in a certain geo, I want engineers to be able to pinpoint exactly where the problem is and fix it. 3. If I get attacked by a shark, I want to provide breadcrumbs for rescuers to find me. 4. If my wife accuses me of going to the arcade, it is important that my dog runni…

This seems like an extension of "“Nothing to hide, nothing to fear” (NTHNTF) fallacy [1][2][3]

[1] https://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Identity-Privacy-and-Tru...

[2] https://www.wired.com/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-...

[3] https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/secrecy/you-may-...

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#102

Post by trident5000 »

syshum wrote: post #92
trident5000 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting my tin foil hat on real quick. Just wait until they implement AI into all these sensors to "predict crimes", turning life into Minority Report. The interesting part is its the common people who will naively go along with it to feel more safe while at the same time further imprisoning themselves.

The TV Show Person of Interest's "Samaritan" AI, is how I see reality to be when we get general purpose AI for police use. There will be no "good AI" (aka "The Machine" in the show) to combat it.

This is kind of what Musk has been constantly warning about. Also important in another scenario is that legislators, police heads, and civilians simply have no idea how task specific AI (rather than general purpose) that governs them works so its a tiny unelected shadow club mass governing people.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#103

Post by gibrown »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #84
gibrown wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Insane? The capitol was assaulted in order to prevent the democratically elected president. An actual insurrection which maybe had some attempted assassination and theft/sale of national security secrets mixed in. Seems like a pretty reasonable response.

>assault on the capitol; insurrection; attempted assassination I just want to point out the two problems with the rhetoric that mass-media and you are using to describe this event: 1. These words confer explosions, gunfire, and mass loss of life. In using these words, you are conjuring extremely violent images within the minds of your listeners. When your listeners discover the truth of the event, that the images you…

Just because it sounds extreme doesn’t mean I am using the wrong words. Guns are not required for violence or murder to occur. Just because some people there were not trying to do either doesn’t mean that didn’t happen. Why do you feel the need to defend them by focusing on selfies?

“Insurrection” is a violent attack on a government.

“Assassination” is murdering a prominent person for political reasons.

> In charging papers, the FBI said that during the Capitol riot, Caldwell received Facebook messages from unspecified senders updating him of the location of lawmakers. When he posted a one-word message, “Inside,” he received exhortations and directions describing tunnels, doors and hallways, the FBI said. Some messages, according to the FBI, included, “Tom all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3floors down,” and “Go through back house chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps.” Another message read: “All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas,” the FBI added.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/conspiracy...

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#104

Post by jandrewrogers »

shakna wrote: post #35
hcurtiss wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was an actual insurrection or attempted assassination, it was the weakest effort imaginable. That doesn’t necessarily change the thrust of your comment (that enforcement is appropriate) but the breathless hyperbole around what happened has really surprised me. An actual insurrection would have looked very different. More guns and C4, fewer selfies.

> More guns and C4, fewer selfies. It's not like there weren't homemade explosives found on the site: > Coffman, 70, told police he had mason jars filled with "melted Styrofoam and gasoline." Federal investigators believe that combination, if exploded, would have the effect of napalm "insofar as it causes the flammable liquid to better stick to objects that it hits upon detonation," according to the court record. [0]…

FWIW, those aren't explosives. Flammable, yes, but definitely not explosive. Spreading gross misinformation like this is part of the problem.

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#105

Post by Cd00d »

bloopernova wrote: post #91
hourislate wrote: post #82

All cells phones, at all times, are tracked everywhere. I'm sure there are 1000's of cameras that are also used to capture visual data (in DC area). Every person flying (domestic/international) is already tracked. MC/VISA/Bank/ATM records are tracked. Every txt, post, voice call, letter you send, package you receive, is tracked (OCR's). Your vehicle is tracked via programs like Onstar, etc, even if you don't sign up…

The point about cameras blanketing DC reminded me: Do we know if there are any security cameras in the US Capitol building? Were they all working? Has the footage from the insurrection attempt been saved? I ask because the capitol seems like one of those places that would resist internal security cameras because congresspersons wouldn't want their meetings potentially being recorded. Plus the general incompetence of…

-> the insurrection attempt

That's wording that made me think, and I had to actually look up the definition of insurrection. I think it was complete insurrection, not a just an attempt at it. But, maybe there's a legal definition or duration of success matters?

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#106

Post by bilbo0s »

13415 wrote: post #94
bilbo0s wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This already happens, most of us just don't live in the neighborhoods where it happens. That's the unfortunate reality of today's America. It's also the reason that these techniques will be employed in a ubiquitous fashion in tomorrow's America. If we wanted to stop this, the time to complain was years ago when the practice was started in the drug war. Or even recently, when the practice was employed during the BLM r…

Like with any other form of surveillance, if it's a bad practice, then it shouldn't be used on anyone, regardless of race.

Point is, the time to stop that particular practice was in its infancy. Waiting until the practice is both widespread and normalized is a losing strategy. The use of cell phone data is well understood, well litigated, and for all intents and purposes, settled law. To come along and unwind all that now is sisyphaean. We need to start getting out in front of the issues. Not reacting all the time. And certainly not allowing privacy violations that affect others, then trying to prevent the very same privacy violation from affecting our own.

The people doing the violating are going to double down. They don't want their critics being proved right. They don't want to be accused of being hypocritical. So what are they going to do?

As privacy activists, we need to make it easy for potential partners to cooperate with us. Right now, we're making it very difficult for potential partners to cooperate with us. We're putting potential partners in very difficult positions, and then asking why they won't support us?

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#108

Post by defen »

gibrown wrote: post #4
sneak wrote: post #2

Presumably this also includes journalists and other people the government has no business tracking. At what point will people say enough is enough to these kinds of insane overreaches?

Huh? Insane? The capitol was assaulted in order to prevent the democratically elected president. An actual insurrection which maybe had some attempted assassination and theft/sale of national security secrets mixed in. Seems like a pretty reasonable response.

Even if literally nothing had happened, the government still would have had this technical capability. I think that's what people are worried about, not the specific fact that they're using it to track down the Capitol rioters. If the FBI were evil instead of a force for good, they could use this capability to harass the "good guys".

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#109

Post by [deleted] »

nabla9 wrote: post #33

Forensic methods used by police and intelligence go much deeper than just looking at phones near the crime scene. 1. They look at phones moving towards the crime scene and going dark when getting close. This is also how you can detect secret meetings between people. They move towards the same area and shut down their phones. 2. They look at suspect phone going dark anywhere around the time of the incident. 3. Leaving…

[deleted]

Re: FBI agents track cell phones that pinged near the Capitol

#110

Post by _underfl0w_ »

suifbwish wrote: post #77
nabla9 wrote: post #33

Forensic methods used by police and intelligence go much deeper than just looking at phones near the crime scene. 1. They look at phones moving towards the crime scene and going dark when getting close. This is also how you can detect secret meetings between people. They move towards the same area and shut down their phones. 2. They look at suspect phone going dark anywhere around the time of the incident. 3. Leaving…

3 raises a very interesting and somewhat concerning possibility. In the near future as AI develops more in the crime detection arena you may become a suspect for crimes occurring in your geographical area based on things you are not doing or based on some set of states your smart devices have that match a statistical model of a suspicious person. The idea of becoming a suspect because you didn’t touch your smartphone…

I recall (likely pre-covid) seeing a story posted here of some unsuspecting schmuck who became a suspect in a crime because his smart watch showed him circling near the area on his usual bike route.

Scary times.

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